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How Did 'A Madea Halloween' Scare Off 'Jack Reacher' at the Box Office? Posted: This weekend, the box office gave us a battle between two sequels and one prequel that no one really asked for. Yep, that's the way Hollywood works now. It's unusual to get three sequels opening in wide release at the same time. Of the three, Cruise's "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back" was expected to do the best, having the most star power and the kind of action-hero plot that makes for blockbusters at any time of year. Even so, the 54-year-old star isn't the draw he used to be, at least not in America. So predictions for "Never" hovered at a debut near $20 million. Perry's "Boo! A Madea Halloween" was supposed to follow close behind. Perry's drag comedies about the gun-toting granny have done very well, at least until the last one, "Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas," three years ago. The writer/director's last movie, "Tyler Perry's The Single Mom's Club," was also an atypical box office disappointment two and a half years ago, and the usually prolific filmmaker hadn't directed another movie since. Given the apparent loss of momentum, Perry was expected to trail Cruise. As for "Ouija: Origin of Evil," no one expected it to match the $19.8 million debut of the original two Octobers ago. Neither critics nor audiences liked it very much, though it still managed to earn $51 million domestically and a similar amount abroad. Still, the new one is the only new horror movie in theaters this Halloween season, so it was supposed to come in a close third with about $17 million. As it turned out, however, it wasn't that close. "Madea Halloween" ran off with most of the candy, opening in first place with an estimated $27.6 million and showing the kind of strength that the first six "Madea" movies enjoyed. "Jack Reacher" also did better than anyone expected, with an estimated $23.0 million, nearly $8 million more than the debut of the original 2012 film, yet it still had to settle for second place. "Ouija" opened to an estimated $14.1 million, almost $6 million less than the 2014 film, to premiere in third place. But considering the film's $9 million dollar budget, that's a respectable debut. Why are sequel-nomics working so much better for Perry than for Cruise or the "Ouija" franchise? Here are five factors that were at play over the weekend: 1. A Crowded Multiplex The ongoing fall slump began to rebound this weekend, with total ticket sales up 24 percent, to about $123 million. So having all these sequels open wide turned out to be a good thing overall, though the films didn't share the wealth equally. In fact, there were four wide releases this weekend, including the Zach Galifianakis spy comedy "Keeping Up With the Joneses," whose low expectations going into the weekend proved justified when it opened in seventh place with a terrible $5.6 million. There were almost five wide releases until faith-based drama "I'm Not Ashamed" scaled down its release to just 505 screens. (Its distributor's pessimism was also justified, as the movie opened at No. 16 with just $900,000 in estimated sales, or a dismal $1,782 per theater.) "Jack Reacher" had to compete against last weekend's champ "The Accountant," which lost a better-than-expected 43 percent of its first-weekend business, coming in fourth with $14.0 million. It seems unwise that Paramount sandwiched the "Reacher" sequel between "The Accountant" and next weekend's "Inferno," but given how much the success of "The Accountant" has surprised analysts, maybe the studio didn't consider the Ben Affleck thriller much of a threat. Oops. 2. Star Power Cruise is still huge overseas. 2012's "Jack Reacher" opened with a disappointing $15.2 million, but it eventually made $80 million domestic and and a total of $218 million worldwide. Already, "Never Go Back" has earned $31 million abroad, for a worldwide total of $54 million. Since the movie cost just a modest (for an action spectacle) $60 million to make, a third "Reacher" already seems inevitable. As for Perry, he's used to openings above $20 million, especially for his movies featuring Madea, so the $16.0 million debut of 2013's "A Madea Christmas" was a shock. An even bigger shock was that "Single Mom's Club" opened with a meager $8 million, on the way to a total gross of less than $16 million. And then, after having averaged a movie release every six months or so for the previous decade, his assembly line shut down for two and a half years. So it's no wonder that box office pundits figured his star power had dimmed enough to keep "Madea Halloween" from opening above $20 million. Fortunately for Perry, his audience has neither forgotten nor deserted him. If anything, he's crossing over beyond his core audience of churchgoing African-Americans. They used to make up 80 or 90 percent of his ticket sales, but this weekend, they were only 60 percent, indicating that Perry is drawing a bigger non-black audience than ever before. By the way, the reason no one expected much from "Joneses," besides the comedy's weak reviews, is that Galifianakis isn't a box office draw, as is evident from his flop "Masterminds" just three weeks ago. 3. The Teens Younger audiences weren't expected to line-up for either Cruise or Perry; rather, they were supposed to go see "Ouija." But Perry might have stolen some of the horror movie's thunder. "Boo!" is unusually teen-friendly for a Perry movie, with frat-party scenes, comic riffs on familiar horror staples, a tonal balance that includes more jokes and less of Perry's usual preachy moralizing, and a cast that features rising teen actress Bella Thorne and several YouTube stars. Plus, it seems "Ouija" studio Universal underestimated the indifference of its target audience to the franchise. 4. The Reviews But how can that be? The first "Ouija" was a sleeper hit. Critics loathed it, but they're expected to hate horror movies. "Origin of Evil," however, has been a shocker in that critics actually like this horror sequel -- a lot. It has a healthy 81 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, making it far and away the best reviewed of the five major releases this weekend. But of course, not everyone cares what critics think. Perry's hits have been impervious to criticism, and so have horror movies that cater to young viewers. Older viewers do still care a little, which is why the poor 40 percent RT rating for "Jack Reacher" may have kept Cruise from scaring up more sales than "Boo!" 5. Word-of-mouth Here's where "Ouija" really stumbled. It earned only a C grade at CinemaScore, just like the first movie, indicating that paying customers weren't going to recommend the movie to friends. It's weird for critics to be so much more enthusiastic about a horror film, especially a sequel, than audiences, but then, it seems like "Origin of Evil" was made with more of an eye toward what the studio and even critics cared about than what audiences wanted. "Joneses" got a weak CinemaScore grade, too (B-), while "Never Go Back" earned an okay-but-not-great B+. "Boo!" earned a strong A, suggesting that Perry delivered what his audience expects and likes, in a way that his competitors this weekend did not. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Box Office: Tyler Perry Crushes 'Jack Reacher 2' With $27.6 Million Posted: By Brent Lang LOS ANGELES, Oct 23 (Variety.com) - It was a battle of the sequels at the multiplexes this weekend, as Tyler Perry's "Boo! A Madea Halloween" narrowly edged out "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back" to claim first place at the domestic box office. The latest film in the long-running Madea series racked up $27.6 million. Comedian Chris Rock may be entitled to a percentage of the gross. Perry was inspired to take his pistol-packing grandma trick-or-treating after Rock's comedian character in 2014's "Top Five" joked that his latest movie, a passion project about a slave revolt, was going head-to-head at the box office with "Boo! A Madea Halloween." What was once intended as satire eventually became a seasonally-appropriate reality.Don't look for "Boo!" to end up in the Oscar race or on many reviewers' "ten best" lists, but the Halloween comedy is a hit for distributor Lionsgate and reaffirms Perry's star power. Despite being routinely derided by critics, the film series has an extremely loyal fan base. Collectively they've earned nearly $380 million, enjoying capacious profit margins given that most of the movies cost less than a Papa John's Super Bowl spot to produce. The latest Madea cost $20 million to make, and attracted a more diverse crowd. Typically the films have an audience that's between 80% to 90% African-American, but this installment's crowd was only 60% African-American, with the rest of ticket buyers made up largely of Caucasians and Hispanic ticket-buyers."Never Go Back" was right behind, with the action sequel earning a solid $23 million. The film brought back Tom Cruise as Reacher, an ex-military investigator with a penchant for ass-kicking. The films are based on a popular series of books by Lee Childs, but despite their best-selling pedigree, a sequel to "Jack Reacher" wasn't exactly a given. The first film ended up making money for Paramount in 2012, grossing $218.3 million worldwide on a production budget of $60 million, but it wasn't exactly a blockbuster. The studio made sure that costs didn't escalate on the sequel, keeping the budget locked at $60 million, a feat since most franchises increase their spending with each subsequent installment. They were rewarded for the cost consciousness. "Never Go Back" improved on "Jack Reacher's" $15.2 million debut from four years ago. It's worth noting, however, that the previous film debuted days after the Sandy Hook elementary school killings, which may have depressed turnout for the violent adventure film."Ouija: Origin of Evil," the follow-up to 2014's low-budget horror hit "Ouija," picked up $14.1 million, a respectable return given its $9 million budget. Universal distributed the Blumhouse production, which got markedly better reviews than the original, but couldn't translate the critical notices into a bigger opening than its predecessor. The first film in the series kicked off to $19.9 million before going on to make $103.6 million globally. Platinum Dunes and Hasbro produced the board game adaptation. Last weekend's champ, Warner Bros.' "The Accountant" had to settle for fourth place, picking up $14 million to push its domestic total to $47.9 million. DreamWorks's Pictures "The Girl on the Train" rounded out the top five, earning $7.3 million. The adaptation of the literary hit about an alcoholic who becomes obsessed with a missing woman, has earned $58.9 million after three weeks in theaters. Universal distributed the film. The weekend's other major new release, Fox's "Keeping Up with the Joneses" flopped, eking out $5.6 million. The action-comedy about a suburban couple who get entangled in the world of international espionage, stars Jon Hamm, Zach Galifianakis, Gal Gadot, and Isla Fisher. It's a rough start given its $40 million budget. Among other releases, "The Met: Live in HD's" screening of Mozart's Don Giovanni drew opera fans, grossing $1.7 million on more than 900 screens. Faith-based distributor Pure Flix debuted "I'm Not Ashamed," a drama about a victim of the Columbine High School shootings, to $900,000 on 505 theaters. Michael Moore waded into the presidential election with "Michael Moore In TrumpLand," a film of a one-man stage performance that the documentary filmmaker delivered in Ohio, all but begging the Rust Belt to abandon the Donald. The film earned $50,200 on two screens for a $25,100 per-screen average. In a statement, Moore said, ""This film speaks to and is being enjoyed by many constituencies, namely the 50% of the country planning not to vote, or those voting third party, but also among Clinton supporters and even Trump voters who know better. I'm convinced now that as millions of Americans will see this movie, it will have an impact on this election." Rapturous critical notices lifted "Moonlight" at the art house box office this weekend. The film was bolstered by a love letter from the New York Times' A.O. Scott, who labeled it "breathtaking" and stopped short of declaring it 2016's best film with two months left to go in the year. The A24 release earned an impressive $414,740 on four screens, for a sizzling $103,685 per-screen average. That sets it up nicely as the indie distributor looks to expand the drama about a gay boy coming-of-age in the inner city of Miami. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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